


Keep Her Safe

by OneDreamADay



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3180014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneDreamADay/pseuds/OneDreamADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You're the big sister, Jane,” her father used to tell her. “Always look out for your sister and keep her safe.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Her Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janes-famous-footjobs](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=janes-famous-footjobs).



It's just Jane and Jaime when everything falls apart.

 

They're holding up in a high school with other families, Jaime, just shy of twenty, is a complete mess.

 

They hear the reports on the news and, unable to hear from their parent, the younger sister hoped they had headed to the high school first.

 

After searching thousand of faces, there's no sign of Mom or Dad and Jane, hopes in her heart that the two are okay.

 

“M-maybe they are at home,” Jane says, trying to comfort her sister. “You know how Dad; he probably has the house boarded up and is protecting Mom, driving her nuts in the process.”

 

Jaime smiles, wiping at her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Bet you're right, you always are.”

 

* * *

 

Except, things never turn out the way you want it to.

 

During the night, an old man with a heart condition dies during the night.

 

Both sisters wake up to screams and groans and the sounds of the dead eating people. Jane quickly pulls Jaime out of there before they are attacked. They jump in the car and driving away with tires screeching.

 

* * *

 

Jane pulls over to vomit, Jaime rubbing her back and she can't get the sight of seeing people being devoured in front of her out of her eyes.

 

* * *

 

They stop by the house, only to find that someone has shot their parents' in the head and stole as much food as they can,

 

Jane finds relief in the fact that her parents won't come back as those things.

 

Both mourn their parents', covering them with a blanket in lieu of burying them. They grab clothes, any non-perishable food that's left and get as fast as they can out of town.

 

* * *

 

Jaime cries all night. Jane wants to, but she feels like she needs to be the stronger one right now.

 

“You're the big sister, Jane,” her father used to tell her. “Always look out for your sister and keep her safe.”

 

She makes a promise that she will. She'll protect Jaime as long as she can.

 

* * *

 

The first time they go with a group, no one can decide on a leader, so there's a constant power struggle in the group, and people are trying to out-do each other on a daily basis. Nothing gets done, with everyone at each other throat all the time. Hunger is gnawing at everyone and there no water to drink.

 

Jane pulls Jaime put of there before things get hairy.

 

The second group is marginally better.

 

Everyone gets along, there's a group for savaging, for protections and for hunting for food. They share a tent with two orphaned girls and their mom. It's a big tent and it fits them all comfortable. Both learn to shoot, learn how to take down what the group calls 'geeks'.

 

Over a dinner of rabbit soup, the men agree that they need to go into the next town over to get some well-needed supplies. Some of the women offer to go to, including the mother. Jaime promises to look after the two little girls.

 

* * *

 

But things go wrong, for some reason, half of the firepower goes to the supply run, leaving the group majorly defenseless.

 

A herd goes through the camp, killing almost everyone, including those two girls.

 

Jane pulls Jaime away and they run from the camp.

 

They stop a good distance away, Jaime sobbing, Jane regretful.

 

“We can go back!” Jaime says. “We can save those who were left behind!”

 

“We can't!” Jane argues back. “We can't go back because if we do, we're dead meat.”

 

Jaime scowls at her, then cries for Mom, Dad, those little girls, and for themselves.

 

* * *

 

When they meet another group, Jaime declines to go with them.

 

“Why bother? It'll just in more heartache, more pain.”

 

* * *

 

They raid a store. Jane finds a couple of leather cold, good for when it gets a lot colder.

 

“You like it?” Jane asks, giving her the darker color one.

 

Other than a half-hearted shrug, Jaime doesn't say a thing

 

* * *

 

Over the next couple of month, Jane watches as the light goes out of her sister's eyes, replace with this shell of a girl who won't move most days.

 

 

* * *

 

“I wish I could be with Mom and Dad again,” Jaime says over a dinner of beans out of a can.

 

“Don't say things like that. Please, Jaime, please don't.” Jane says.

 

 _'I need you here with me,'_ Jane doesn't say.

 

* * *

 

Another day, another fight to get Jaime up and eating, walking, saying something.

 

Most days it just her pushing Jaime around, giving her orders and feeling like the biggest ass in the world for treating her sister this way.

 

* * *

 

Jane finds her sister holding a hand gun one day.

 

She's not sure where the other girl found it; they mostly use hunting knifes to kill walkers, it's more quiet. Less attention.

 

They don't say anything. Jane looks at Jaime, and Jaime looks at the gun. Jane holds her hand, begging wordlessly for it and after a long, long moment where Jane's afraid her sister might go through with it, she places it in her older sister's hand and Jane throws it in into the river, as if it's a bomb.

 

Jane hugs her sister, but Jaime doesn't hug back.

 

* * *

 

“Mom, I don't know what to do with her anymore. Please, Mom, Dad, _someone up there,_ help me. Help Jaime.”

 

* * *

 

There's no answer, no help, nothing. So Jane stops praying.

 

* * *

 

 

They go into town that afternoon for food, water, and new clothes. It's easy for the most part. Until they get trapped.

 

Jane pulls her sister along with her to the roof. All they have to do is jump across to the next roof and they're clear. But Jaime won't move, refuses to jump. She thinks about tossing her across, but that won't work. The gap too big, Jaime too heavy.

 

“Come on,” Jane hisses, hearing the geeks get closer, banging on the door. It's only a matter of time before they burst open that door. “Move your ass!”

 

Her sister doesn't move.

 

Jane, in anger, shakes her. Hard enough that her head moves sharply back and forth, like a bobble head.

 

“You're gonna die, Jaime. You're gonna die a shitty death in this shitty world if you don't move right now!”

 

Jaime looks at her, her normal brown eyes lifeless and Jane wonders if her sister truly died all those months ago.

 

“Mom and Dad would not want this!” She yells. “Please Jaime!”

 

The door creaks louder, and Jane can see hand poking from the open door; they have a few seconds at most.

 

“Is this what you want!? You want to be a geek!?”

 

Jane paces, unsure what to, rubs at her hair furiously. Then stops.

 

“Fine, you can stay here! Stay and die! You can have what you want.”

 

The door burst open and like a flash, Jane is jumping across the roof, running as fast as she can.

 

She never looks back, doesn't want to. She waits for a moment, sure Jaime's gonna be right behind her, running to catch up.

 

She never shows up.

 

* * *

 

 

Jane has dreams about that day.

 

While she never heard Jaime scream on that roof, in her dreams, she does.

 

It's a bloodcurdling scream, begging of Jane to come back and help her.

 

_Jane,  Jane, I'm sorry, help me! Help me!_ Dream Jaime screams.

 

* * *

 

 

“Always look out for your sister and keep her safe.” Her father used to tell her.

 

She failed.

 

She failed miserably.

 

* * *

 

A month of Jaime screaming at her to save her in her dreams, and Jane is almost ready to put a bullet in her brain.

 

* * *

 

A year later, Jane meets a little girl named Clementine.

 

“ _Always look out for your sister and keep her safe.”_

 

This time, she plans to.

 

She'll do anything to keep her sister safe.

 

Anything.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It was always my belief that Jaime, going by Jane's story, displayed clear signs of depression and mostly like had suicidal thoughts.


End file.
